The COVID-19 pandemic

[tomh009]

Were they not simply advising people not to use them or seek sources of them because we were not sure to what extent hospitals were going to be hit, and so, they wanted to ensure that the general public was not panic buying them? I mean...people rushed out to buy toilet paper, bananas and meat within a week of the WHO declaring the virus a pandemic. People were also panic buying masks, sanitizer, soap and chemical disinfectants. That really worried hospitals, especially because we saw that in certain places (like NYC) they were quickly running out of PPE supplies for those who needed them.

That might be true, but the government could easily restrict sales of N95's, which was needed by the medical community. In the early stages, they said anything less than N95's were useless. There wasn't much thought given to the idea that masks could limit spread. Dr. Tam was quite vocal initially that simple masks were ineffective.

N95 is what a doctor or nurse absolutely needs when dealing with an infectious patient. But every healthcare worker, whether in a hospital or in LTC, should have been wearing a surgical mask to limit the spread. Unfortunately there was a serious shortage of those, too.

So, I think what happened was that they tried to deemphasize the importance of masks to the public to avoid a panic. And the message was muddled, causing no end of confusion.